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Pens:

28 August 2016

“Heart Lands”

Meticulously, each season unfolds into the “heart” lands. Pumping with a gentle energy that courses through the soul. Teaming with a determination to push through the earth’s layers.

Spirit, ego, disposition, behavior. Spring, summer, autumn, winter.

Each a harvest of the “heart”lands. Each a remnant of the past in the present.

A petal, a flower, a place, a time, Spatial planes reveal everything and nothing.

Questions arise, continuing, Never fully answered.

Simply inciting and instigating. ~~ Sally W. Donatello

In the Lens section is my latest experimentation with photomontage. “Heart Lands” combines spring and summer floral beauties. They become a landscape of the heart—my heart. But they also are forms and lines and symbols of the seasons–seasons whose rhythms chart our lives through the earth’s bounty.

Tip of the Week:

“I wish to blur the firm boundaries which we self-certain people tend to delineate around all we can achieve.” ~~ Hannah Höch

German-born Hannah Höch (1889-1978) was a photographer, specializing in photomontage. She studied art in Berlin, and later joined the Dadaists. Höch’s work was deeply embedded in the technique of photomontage, which she refined through a cut-and-paste approach. Pablo Picasso’s Cubist artwork was an influence. Mostly, it was her passion for photomontage that allowed her to speak about her ideology, both politically and socially, especially her criticism of the Weimar German Government. Her signature series was the Dadaist dolls, which echoed her views about gender roles. In many ways she was a pioneer in the early feminist movement.

The Art Story, which is a website about modern art and its style and philosophy from 1860s to the 1970s, has the following to say about the early modernist Hannah Höch:

“Höch was a key progenitor of the self-conscious practice of collaging diverse photographic elements from different sources to make art. This strategy of combining formerly unrelated images to make sometimes startling, sometimes insightful connections was one that came to be adopted by many Dada and Surrealist artists of her era, and also by later generations of ‘post-modern’ conceptual artists in other media, including sculptural installations, mixed media and moving images, as well as in still photography. Höch also helped expand the notion of what could be considered art by incorporating found elements of popular culture into “higher” art. She was one of many Dadaists to take advantage of such means, but she was both among the first, and one of the most self-consciously explicit in describing the goals and effects of doing so.” I hope that you are inspired by her philosophy and photography.

As always I welcome comments about this post or any part of my blog. My photographs for the mobile photography challenge are taken with an iPhone 6.

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Interesting photomontage! Love the colors and blend of images. Perfect. I have never heard of Hannah either. Thank you again for broadening my knowledge of the photography world and all its interesting history!

Like most others here, I’d not heard of Hannah Höch, even though I’m familiar with some of the other Dadaists. When I read that she criticized the Weimar Republic, I thought with irony of the regime that succeeded it. From Wikipedia I learned that “Höch spent the years of the Third Reich in Berlin, Germany, keeping a low profile. She lived in Berlin-Heiligensee, a remote area on the outskirts of Berlin, hiding in a small garden house.”

Beautiful Sally. The colours and flow of your image are both soothing and mysterious. Thanks for the introduction to Hannah Hoch; I’ve been looking at Dadaist dolls as part of a doll-making project I’m working on, and I’m ashamed to say, I hadn’t made the connection.

Nicole, honestly, it was a matter of discovering the images that work well together. Selection is the most difficult part of the process. I have combined from two to five images. I never want it to appear contrived. I’m finding that 2 is optimum, but will go further to experiment. Usually, I will know when the photomontage has it center, so to speak. Nicole, happy to answer any other questions.

Gosh, what a lovely image and thanks for the great article on Hannah Hoch. I enjoyed it immensely and it has inspired me. I’ll be back later with my response. Thanks again for the intellectual and photographic inspiration. It’s just what I need right now.

Thats true, Sally, it was such a difference to see the pictures and read the book, which is correspondending with her Collage: self-portrait – she was working on this book, too. I like to read her own words, instead of interpretations of others-